


Stranger

by Trees_Are_The_Answer



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Jasonette, MariBat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:14:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29853795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trees_Are_The_Answer/pseuds/Trees_Are_The_Answer
Summary: A one-shot in two parts.  That is, through two sets of eyes.There's a stranger in Wayne Manor.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Koriand'r, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Jason Todd
Comments: 4
Kudos: 159





	1. Jason

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I swear I will update "Mistakes"--and I might just change the title because right now it is REALLY long and acronyms and abbreviations aren't my thing--but while my brain fights me on that, here are some words to hold you over.
> 
> They've been living rent-free in my head, and I'm evicting them. Please take them.

Her girlish giggle would never get old; Jason swore he could listen to her laugh like this forever. It was all he wanted, and he was trying to build up the courage to make that dream a reality. His face heated as he watched her swing through the air, soaring in a graceful arc only to be caught around the forearms by his brother at the last second. He was a little jealous that Dick was the one who knew how to do this with her. It wasn’t like Jason _couldn’t_ use the trapeze. But he hadn’t grown up flying like Dick had, and he would _never_ willingly endanger her life.

And it wasn’t like he thought she couldn’t handle herself. He’d experienced firsthand just exactly how skilled she was—his hand drifted unconsciously to his ribs, long-healed after their first encounter four years ago when he’d attempted to rescue her from muggers only to have her fight _him_ off. She’d maneuvered out of his grasp and snapped a kick to his side that fractured not one but three of his ribs with an audible snap. He grinned at the memory of her mortified face, her stuttered apology once she’d recognized him as Red Hood and not another criminal.

He’d brought her here before—she loved flying through the air here, the threat of plunging to her death negated by the net strung below the trapeze and high wire. Still, his breath caught in his chest as Dick launched her from his grasp in a continuation of her first arc. _This_ was new. They’d discussed it with each other, they’d told him not to worry about it, but he hadn’t known what it was. He never found out.

“What’s going on in here?”

Bruce was using his Batman voice. It boomed and echoed through the near-empty gym, and Marinette forgot herself, glancing at the intruder instead of focusing on her landing. She missed her mark, crying out as she free-fell.

“Pixie!”

Jason didn’t really think, he just reacted. He was already leaping to catch her when his brain caught up with his body and he remembered the whole purpose of using this space was that there was a net to catch her if she fell. Still, his body curled around hers as she plummeted and they bounced once, twice, before sinking into the center of the net. He kept himself wrapped around her for a moment while they tried to catch their breath. He ignored Dick’s shouts asking if they were okay. Marinette had her hands fisted in his shirt and was trembling uncontrollably.

“Are you hurt, Pix?” he asked her. He couldn’t bring himself to raise his voice above a whisper, he didn’t want to frighten her further.

She shook her head in response but didn’t speak. Her breathing was still erratic, whereas he’d begun to calm as soon as they'd landed. He gently cupped a hand under her chin to tilt her face toward his. Her eyes were wide and blank, and her pupils were so dilated in fear, the black nearly eclipsed the ocean depths of her irises. He tucked her head under his chin and wrapped his arms tighter around her small, shaking frame. He glared at his adoptive father. Bruce _knew_ better than to interrupt when anyone was in the air. That was how shit like this happened! Admittedly, Jason hadn’t known Bruce was home, otherwise they probably wouldn’t have come by. But it had been a couple months since Marinette had had the opportunity to fly and he knew she was restless. (She refused to use the tiny gods she watched over to go free running over Gotham’s rooftops. He couldn’t blame her. Magic was still something that made him nervous, and after all her stories and Tikki’s insistence that using it for personal gain never resulted in anything good, he recognized her good sense.) So, he’d called Dick to let him know they were in town and Marinette wanted to use the gymnasium, brought her to the first place he’d ever felt truly safe, and here they were.

But he’d never introduced her to Bruce. She’d never expressed any desire to meet him, even after all her interactions with Alfred. Anytime Jason even mentioned Bruce’s name, her bluebell eyes would flash dangerously. She’d only ever spoken her feelings about the man once, and those feelings were…not positive (it was after New York’s Spring Fashion Week, and she’d singlehandedly downed a bottle and a half of red wine in celebration that she could relax for the next two weeks. The hangover had been epic. He’d never kept more than one bottle of wine in the apartment after that.).

So, the man who’d taken him in and given him a real home had never met the woman he loved.

“Bruce, are you _insane_?!” Dick raged at their father figure. “You _know_ how dangerous that is! You can’t just _distract_ someone like that when they’re in the air. She could have been seriously _hurt_!”

Jason let his brother berate Bruce. Marinette still hadn’t stopped shaking, and he was starting to worry. It occurred to him that she might be having a flashback. He’d seen some of the videos from her childhood in Paris as a heroine. She’d fallen from the Eiffel Tower more times than he cared to count. Some of those falls had killed her, before the Snake had reset the timeline so they could try again. He suppressed a shudder. He could panic about losing her later. She needed him right now. He hummed the lullaby her mother had taught him when he’d visited the little bakery two years ago. Marinette had been having night terrors as she slept in her childhood bedroom. Sabine had walked in on him trying to console her in the middle of the night, and he’d learned the tune quickly. Getting the words right didn’t matter, he’d realized. It was the familiarity of the _tune_ , the reminder of safety that helped. He’d held her close to his chest and hummed along with Sabine, who informed him it was the fastest she’d seen her daughter relax after a night terror. Marinette had told him it was something about the way his voice rumbled through his chest, the way she could breathe him in. He cherished the idea that she felt safe with him.

He glanced at Bruce as he hummed and saw the man’s eyes had gone wide with surprise. So had Dick’s. He arched an eyebrow, daring them to comment, but otherwise didn’t move. He wouldn’t move until Marinette was ready. As he hummed, her fingers slowly loosened from his shirt and her breathing calmed. After a moment or two more, the tension melted away from her shoulders and he pressed his lips to the top of her head. She raised her eyes to his again, and he stopped breathing as he drowned in blue. There was so much trust in that gaze, so much love; he continually marveled that he was the one to receive this gift from her.

_“Merci, mon phénix.”_ She whispered, settling her head against his shoulder.


	2. Bruce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world's greatest detective... is an idiot.

_There was laughter coming from the gymnasium._

It wasn’t precisely abnormal. After all, Bruce had all but lost count of how many children actually lived in the manor full-time. And even if it was a little dastardly and maniacal at times, laughter was, in fact, a regular sound that echoed down the halls and through the massive rooms. That wasn’t the issue.

_There was laughter coming from the gymnasium._

It was loud and joyful and entirely unfamiliar. He knew his children’s friends, he had extensive files on them and their families. This sound that inexplicably filled him with a barely-recognizable warmth—a reminder of _home_ that he hadn’t imagined he’d feel again after he’d watched his parents die as a child—was entirely foreign. 

_There was laughter coming from the gymnasium._

And the world’s greatest detective was going to discover the source.

***

_There was a stranger in the gymnasium._

She was laughing with his eldest son, while his second watched from below—a love-struck grin stretching across his face and a light flush splashed across his cheeks. He watched for a minute before he entered, appreciating the woman’s grace and obvious familiarity with gymnastics and the trapeze Dick adored. Dick’s smile was a gift in itself—Bruce hadn’t seen that smile since little Mar’i had taken her first steps, and although this smile had made more frequent appearances since Kor’i and Mar’i had come into the family, it was still rather rare. It was a truly joyful smile, and Bruce missed it. He was distracted from his thoughts when Dick changed their trajectory mid-swing, tossing the stranger so that she continued her arc, rather than sending her back toward the opposite trapeze. She was clearly meant to land on the highwire. How often had she been here without his knowledge, to the end that his sons trusted her so much in their home, and she trusted them with her life this way?

_There was a stranger in the gymnasium._

“What’s going on in here?”

He hadn’t meant to say the words out loud, and certainly not so loudly. He knew it was absurdly dangerous to interrupt someone mid-flight. He’d never done it before (Stephanie had, but only once), but the scene had surprised him so much, he’d lost his filter. The little acrobat glanced at him, and his heart dropped to his stomach as he seemed to predict what followed. He knew when she’d missed her mark, could trace the path she would take when she didn’t land on the wire.

What he didn’t predict was the downright terrified shout that came from Jason as he sprinted forward and threw himself into her path.

“Pixie!”

_There was a stranger in the gymnasium._

Bruce watched in stunned silence as his son curled protectively around the small woman and they fell into the safety net, bouncing before settling to a stop. He expected the shouting that came at him next but flinched when it came from Dick and not Jason. Dick only shouted when he lost control. And Bruce knew _exactly_ what Dick had seen when the stranger had missed the wire. His son had watched his parents plummet to their deaths when he was a child. He’d become Robin in an effort to control the world around him, to prevent other deaths from happening under his watch. And Bruce, in a moment of careless surprise, had nearly caused similar trauma in his son’s life. Even as Dick’s voice echoed with recriminations, the Wayne patriarch couldn’t tear his gaze from where Jason lay in the net, still wrapped around the stranger, glaring at him briefly before turning his attention back to the woman in his arms. Dick’s voice cut off when a low rumbling reached them. Jason was… _singing_?

No, he was humming. The tune was vaguely familiar, although Bruce couldn’t quite place it. Not that it mattered. He’d seen Jason protective before, he’d always had a soft spot for street kids and the particularly innocent or defenseless. But it had never been like this. He’d never seen his son so… _soft_ before. Dick was staring, too, he could see him in his peripheral vision. Jason glanced up once again, quirking an eyebrow but didn’t relax his defensive position around the—he couldn’t call her a stranger, Bruce realized. She was a _visitor_. She’d obviously been here before, both Dick and Jason were familiar with her. Jason was obviously _very_ familiar with her.

After a minute or two, the rumbling hum ceased, and a soft voice whispered from somewhere near Jason’s chest.

_“Merci, mon phénix.”_

French.

Of _course_.

Everything slid into place as she spoke. Jason’s regular use of the zeta tubes to ‘check on the Paris situation’ even after the terrorist had been brought to justice; his subtle changes in demeanor over the last four years; his more-excessive-than-normal refusal to talk about his personal life. His son had met this woman in Paris, and if the look he was giving her now was any indication, had fallen head over heels in love with her. As Bruce watched the pair, he realized she could easily be mistaken for another Wayne adoptee, with her dark hair and bright blue eyes. Even her physical capabilities—though he’d only watched for a short while, they were obvious—were on par with his other children. How had he not known about her? Even considering Jason’s ability to keep his life more private than any of his other children, Bruce was usually able to find some information about the people his son kept in contact with. So much for being the world’s greatest detective.

Hang on— _her_ _phoenix_?! She knew. The petite Parisian now being lifted from the net knew that Jason had died and come back. What _else_ did she know—what had Jason _told_ her? Bruce felt his face harden as the pair approached, even as he registered surprise and approval as his second son stepped ahead of the newcomer, effectively stepping up to take the blame he undoubtedly felt rolling off of Bruce’s shoulders.

“Don’t start with me, B.” Jason spoke before he could say anything even mildly accusatory. “She knows about all of us. She’s known for more than three years. And _not_ _once_ did she out us.”

He thought his eyes might actually fall out of his head—they’d widened so much. He glanced at the visitor. She was trying for emotionless, but something burned in her bright blue eyes. Not quite fury, but definitely in the same vein as anger with a protective edge. Like she’d step between him and his son if she felt the need. As if Jason needed protecting. As though someone her size could protect Jason from him. He chastised himself inwardly. He knew better than to underestimate someone because of their size. The way this woman held herself spoke volumes about her capabilities as a defender of the innocent. At the same time, it was clear she wasn’t sure of herself. She knew she was a force to be reckoned with when she had to be; if someone needed her help. Alone…he could very easily see her falling prey to the more vindictive population. And those sapphire eyes held a story he recognized in all of his children—he felt a pang of sorrow for her as he read her suffering there, seeing that she’d had to grow up much faster than her peers, that she’d experienced things no child should have ever had to. He wondered about her but knew he might not ever find out. Not if she were attached to Jason—not with his and Jason’s history.

So, rather than argue with the man he’d feared he might never see Jason become, he nodded and stepped aside as they left the gymnasium.


End file.
